Legacies
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: "'The people we saved, they're our legacy.'" After Team Free Will saves the world a third time, Jody finds Sam's journal, complete with the hundreds of people they saved over a decade and a half, and gets an idea of just how big of a difference the two men and their angel made in the world. Who better to invite to a celebration of life than the people whose lives were saved?
1. Chapter 1

_This is somewhat speculative for season 15 and slightly follows the end of season 14, though the whole earth darkening thing happens slower here. Basically a way I could see the show ending, and this is my version of writing a letter of appreciation to it. Lots of past characters will be mentioned or make appearances, and I'd love to hear which ones you guys recognized :) Big thanks to ThornsHaveRoses for helping me out with some character ideas._

_The whole thing will be two chapters, chapter 2 will be posted either Saturday or Sunday. If anyone wants some music to go along with this, 'Now Comes the Night' by Rob Thomas inspired half this story and is a beautifully heartbreaking song. Thanks so much for reading!_

_Still don't own Supernatural. Eagerly waiting the last two months before the final season. This is also cross-posted on AO3, same username and everything._

* * *

Jody is sitting at her desk writing up a report about an attempted burglary when the call comes in. She doesn't usually take calls while at work, but one glance down at the 'Dean' lighting up her screen and she's out from behind her desk and headed down the nearest hallway.

Her path is lit with overhead lights despite every window being open, not that there's much light at two in the afternoon to be coming into the building. Not these days.

"Dean? Glad you called, how are things?" she says when she picks up on the third ring once she's away from other prying ears. They've been staying in contact for the past week and a half, but mostly just texts back and forth, she hasn't talked to him in almost a week, Sam in longer, since he's the one usually pulling together most of the research.

"Hey, Jody," he greets, and just from his tone, she can tell that something's wrong. Very, very wrong. It's the careful tone he uses when there are scared victims nearby having just witnessed a monster trying to end their lives. Jody hopes that Dean isn't in the victim's position. "Sure you've noticed the weather getting worse over the past few days?"

Jody looks out the window and sighs. Yes, she's noticed, part of the reason why she's been staying in such constant communication with the Winchester brothers and Castiel. It had started two weeks ago, a level of darkness descending over the sky like a thin sheet. It wasn't much to notice at first, but as the days progressed, the sky kept darkening, like someone in the heavens was pulling more layers of blankets between the earth and the sun.

It's worldwide.

It wasn't like the solar dimming event of a few years ago, and scientists had no explanation for it, but warned people to prepare for whatever they could. She had called Sam and Dean right away and they had confirmed that yes, it was one of their types of situations, which did nothing to put her mind at ease. Though she'd asked, they hadn't done much in the way of filling her in on what was really going on. It's a bit irking, but not much because she trusts that if they needed to tell her what was happening, they would.

Chances were that the real answer would do more harm than good, shattering some notions she had about the way the world was supposed to work. They were protecting her, as always.

The darkening compounded significantly as it went into its third week, and as Jody looks outside, Dean on the other end of the phone, the sky is tinted a dark blue instead of the light, sunny sky that they should have seen in the afternoon.

"Course I've noticed, you boys find a reason why?" She knows they've been on it from the start, going through everything they had in the bunker.

"Yeah, we've known the reason for a while now, a little hard to explain." Jody is about to open her mouth to say that a lot of things were hard to explain in their line of work, but she had plenty of experience now and that they should please start clueing her in. Especially since it's been weeks, and protecting her or not, she's getting worried and would rather know what's really going on. But his next sentence stops her. "But Jody, look, I don't have a lot of time here, I'm sorry, I can't explain. Just…just know that we found a way to stop it, to fix it, for good."

Jody leans against the cement wall behind her, eyes fixed on the near blackness outside. "Where are you boys?"

There's a pause. "Also hard to explain, not rationally at least."

"Well try it, I'll come to you, sounds like you could use an extra set of hands-"

"Jody."

And it's the way he says it. Carefully. Calmly. Pleadingly. That she knows this is going down a bad road.

"We're doing this, and not dragging anyone else in with us. Me, Sam, and Cas all agreed on that."

"At least tell me what it is, if there's anything I can do to help?" she's the one doing the pleading now.

"I can't, I'm sorry. I called," Dean catches himself, and she could hear him take a breath over the line, "to let you know it might, we might…"

He trails off and Jody starts shaking her head. Her eyes begin to burn, but she's determined to not let it get the better of her. She doesn't need to put any more weight on their shoulders.

"Look, we'll call in a few days if we can, I promise. And if we don't…" Again, he leaves it open. Dean Winchester, struggling with a goodbye after probably having said so many of them in his lifetime. Jody had just always hoped that she'd never be on the receiving end of one.

"Yeah," and damnit, her throat closes up as she says it, as if she were giving her permission for them to do whatever they had to do to save the world and very possibly die trying.

"Just, I'm sorry, for all of this," Dean sighs, his voice dropping off.

"Don't you dare apologize to me, Dean, not you or Sam or Castiel, alright? You do what you need to do, there's no need for apologies." Even though the tears making the way down her cheeks may have told differently, she's being honest. She knows they have to do this. That they were the only ones that could do this. Whatever this was.

"Alright," she can hear something akin to a slight smile in his voice as he acquiesces. "Thank you, Jody, from all of us, for everything."

There are ten years worth of memories behind that one statement. Ten years of world ending events, losing friends, and taking on whatever went bump in the night. Ten years of avoiding the apocalypse, saving friends, and making new ones.

"You too."

"Take care of the girls, alright?"

"Always will." It was a promise she had intended to keep from the moment they fell into her lap and she took them in.

There's a long pause, as if he were contemplating what to say next, and for a few moments the only sounds on the line are what sounds like a few powerful gusts of wind and something else she's never quite heard before.

"Bye, Jody," is what he eventually settles on, with a quiet finality to it.

It's a goodbye, in its purest form.

She repeats the sentiment and waits for him to click the line off.

Then she's left standing in the hallway, tears dried on her face, staring out into the world the Winchesters were on their way to save once again.

It's only in hindsight that she'll realize it's the last time she'll ever talk to one of them.

* * *

She calls Donna after she collects herself for a minute and relays what Dean told her. Claire and Alex are next, of course, each expressing their own worries, but Jody has nothing to give them beyond what Dean told her. No sympathies, no promises that they'll be alright, no details about what they're facing or how they'll fix the world.

When Jody returns to her desk at a little past three, the sky is as dark as ever.

Jody sets her phone on vibrate and to the highest alarm sound for incoming calls, but nothing comes through. The first day after the call with Dean is just like the ones that preceded it. Monotonous, listening to theories about how the world is ending, dealing with a traffic accident because someone didn't have their headlights on at eleven in the morning.

Things take a turn for the worse after that. If there's one thing Jody's learned over the past few years it's that there's always a _worse _and that it should always be expected. Second shoes and all that, as Dean would say.

The second day the sky darkens to pitch black. There's no semblance of light anywhere in the sky, and even the stars refuse to poke through to offer some amount of hope. It's just cold, black, and quiet. Insects don't click and hum in the darkness, dogs rest silently inside their homes, the birds in the trees sit still. It's as if they too are waiting for the end.

The third day the electricity fails. The street lamps shut off, buildings are dark, and no amounts of generators can fix anything. People are advised to stay inside with the doors locked. The problem is that the only ones that can hear the advisements are the ones with battery powered radios previously stashed in a cupboard somewhere. The message passes by word of mouth, but nobody's willing to venture further out than a few houses down the block.

It's not long before chaos begins to reign, and Jody isn't sure what time it really is anymore, despite what her mechanical watch says.

The fourth day she realizes that she's going through their stock of candles much too quickly. The world without light is cold and lifeless, despite the girls that do their best in the worst of situations. They play card games by the light of two red candles that Jody saves for special occasions.

No sense saving them if there won't be any more holidays, right?

Somewhere between the fourth and the fifth day she falls asleep. Sleep is another thing entirely, blocky and at random times with no light to guide it. It's the only thing darker than the blackness currently surrounding them.

When she wakes up on the morning of the fifth day after talking to Dean, that's the first thing she notices.

_Morning._

Soft light is streaming in through the back sliding glass door, which Jody is facing after she fell asleep on the couch. It's bouncing off the metal fixtures in the kitchen, making patterns on the wood floor, warming the cold planet.

The fifth day the world is back to the way it always was, warm and full of light and life. Her phone immediately lights up with a call from Donna, and it takes everything in her for Jody to not cry as she flicks on a light switch.

Because they did it.

She calls everyone she can think of to check in. The girls go to see their neighbors, Alex returns to the hospital.

Day six, day seven.

The world goes on.

Sam and Dean and Cas don't return any of her calls.

Her nationwide searches turn up no sign of their presence of absence. There are no new craters in the ground or electrical surges or storm cells or blasts of lightning to signal where they've gone.

The Impala hasn't run any red lights, there's been no strange break-ins by three extremely tall men, no one has reported seeing them saving lives or getting rid of whatever tries to cause the end of the world.

They're just gone.

* * *

When she requests two weeks off to deal with the deaths of her two distantly related nephews who died in a car wreck during the blackout, which they've all started calling it, her supervisor is hesitant. The city is still coming together and people need help. But once she's explained that even though their blood ties may not be strong, they're still her family, that there's no one else to do this for them, and they're the reason why she's here to help people in the first place, he allows it.

Jody packs a bag, kisses the girls goodbye, promises to call, and heads straight for Lebanon, Kansas.

Donna checks in periodically, of course, dealing with many of the same problems as Jody, but she tells Donna to stay put, at least until she knows more. She makes the rest of the six hour drive in silence.

She finds a way into the bunker through the garage, like the brothers showed her in case there was an emergency and they weren't around to open the bunker from the outside otherwise. The Impala isn't parked on the small dirt road and it isn't in the garage when she opens the wide, heavy doors. There's a spot in the middle of the cement structure where Jody knows the car made her home, but it isn't there.

Baby vanished, just like her owners, and if Jody weren't already so torn up by the entire thing, she'd find it extremely fitting.

The bunker is dark when she enters the hallway, and she has to use her flashlight until she can find her way to the map room and manually turn the lights back on. Maybe the Winchesters left it dark on purpose?

She prefers not to think like that.

There are no obvious signs as to what happened. No books or laptops on the table, in contrast to what she had expected. No coffee cups anywhere, and the kitchen is practically emptied of food contents aside from a few nonperishables. The library is in neat order, the storage rooms are all arranged. Everything is spotless.

Almost as if they left it how they found it on purpose.

The doors to their rooms are closed, but there she finds some evidence that the Winchesters did in fact make this place their home. Dean's pictures are gone from where he put them, as are a few guns he had on the walls. But his bed is made, there are notes on the desk, a jacket hung over the chair, and a half-drunk bottle of booze sitting next to the lamp.

If she went through the dressers, there would probably other items, but instead she turns the light off and closes the door.

Sam's room is much of the same, with a few less items than Deans, and a few notable ones missing. Try as she might, she can't find their silver pistols anywhere. Chances are they took the guns with them when they went to end whatever it was before it ended the world.

She tries not to pry, she really does, but the corner of a box sticking out from under Sam's bed catches her eye. It looks like it's been pulled out recently, which means there could be clues as to what actually happened to them.

Jody pulls out the box and sits on the very corner of Sam's bed, waiting a moment before she opens it. The box is obviously old, wooden with metal hinges and plenty of dents and scratches to go along with it. She imagines it shoved into duffles, rattling around in the Impala's trunk as it covered tens of thousands of miles over the years, and Sam keeping the box with him until they found a permanent home to move it into.

The first thing in the box is a journal. Thick, leather, with a variety of different pages, and like the box, old and worn. She sets it aside for the time being.

The next thing she pulls out is a pamphlet for Oak Park Retirement Home, which Jody smiles at the thought of. Was Sam really thinking of retirement? Something there doesn't click.

It's clear that the only clue she may find was in what appeared to be the hunting journal, but she keeps looking at the various items in the box.

Photos, a wooden amulet, a lighter, a knife, cards, rings, a green army man.

All items that look innocuous and unimportant, except the photos of course, to an outsider, which Jody was in these terms. But there were memories associated with these items, specific things Sam wanted to remember, and he had protected and kept them for who knew how long.

Everything is put back carefully where she found it, except for the journal and the pamphlet. She takes those to the library and sits down with her laptop to do a quick search on the retirement home. It only takes her a few minutes to find out that Sam hadn't been planning on retiring, it was a memento from a job he and Dean had worked a few years ago.

She finds three main news articles, two detailing incidents about the retirement home, and one describing renovations about to take place on some areas that had been damaged. The exact details are scarce, but Jody doesn't need much more. They had saved people in that retirement home. People that may still be alive to remember them.

That was all it took to get the gears turning in her head.

She opens the journal next, flipping through the pages with a respectful reverence about their contents. The journal started when Sam was young and detailed some of the hunts they had been on. A few years of dates were missing, but they started back up again in 2005 when Jody knew Dean had picked him up from college to find their father.

The entries are sparse at first, basic details with places, people, a summary of what happened, what they had hunted, and how they had killed it. As she flips through, the years progress, as does the amount of description Sam put into the entries. Some span pages, listing the people they helped and tips for when to face the creature should another like it pop up.

Jody tilts the journal so she can get a better glimpse at some of the pages and as she does so, a scrap of paper flutters out. She picks it up and uncreases it, immediately distinguishing the writing on it as Sam's.

_To whoever finds this, I hope it does you as much good as it did me and my brother. -Sam Winchester_

He had intended for someone to find it eventually, to use it, probably in the same line of work, to carry on what the Winchesters had done. They had left the bunker in hopes that someday someone would come along and continue. Jody doesn't know if they had expected someone else long down the line or her a week later, but she's there now.

The journal in front of her is filled with the Winchester's lives, the people they saved, their legacy.

She finds the phone number for the retirement home and is calling it before she can put another thought to the matter. Jody asks a few questions, gets a few answers, and is soon connected to a sweet older woman who says that yes, two FBI agents came and saved her life a few years ago.

The woman, Mildred Baker, doesn't go into details until Jody assures her that she's a friend of Sam and Dean's and is up to speed with the whole monster business. What she gets in return is a grateful woman, happy to finally have someone to talk to that will believe her crazy story of the time the brothers and the other deaf hunter saved her from a banshee in red robes.

Jody listens, enthralled, as the boys had never told that specific story to her. Mildred ends her retelling by asking if Jody has a number for the boys where she can reach them to talk sometime.

And that's when Jody breaks the news.

There's a breath of silence before Mildred asks when the wake will be, or if they've already had a funeral. Jody has to reply that neither will be taking place, there are no bodies to bury, and the Winchesters were never ones for big crowds.

Then Mildred pitches a celebration of life. Oh, how she'd love to go if she could, and she has Jody promise to keep her updated if something should come to pass. She'd love to pay her respects to the men that saved her life, and apparently the world after that.

Jody assures her that if anything comes up, she'll call, and then hangs up the phone. And she sits. For minutes, she sits and thinks. Then she calls Donna and after half an hour of honest discussion, they come up with a plan.

When Jody hangs up with her, she flips to the most recent page in Sam's journal, finds the person's name and a phone number where they can hopefully be reached, and dials. When they pick up, there's a slight spark of hope in her chest.

"Hi, sorry to bother you, this may seem like an odd question, but please bear with me. My name is Jody Mills, and I'm a good friend of two men, Sam and Dean, I'm not sure what names they gave you, but they're tall, most likely posed as FBI agents, and probably saved your life? Ring any bells?"

A short speech along those lines becomes what she greets the survivors with. They tell her their stories, and after a few she begins to write them down.

The Winchesters saved her son from drowning fourteen years ago. They helped a man and his partner, fans of the Winchester books, take down a real ghost. Defeated the pale, robed figure keeping a mother and daughter captive in a nightmarish version of their house. Were instrumental in getting his boyfriend the closure he needed with chittering monsters that had killed his brother years prior. Uncovered her fellow detective's crimes against the station and saved her life in the process. Saved her from the real monsters in the world, plain old humans that hunted other people for sport.

The list goes on and on and on.

Stories upon stories from the last decade and a half told by people of all ages across the lower forty-eight. They ask questions and she answers as best as she can. She's sorry that she can't give them the closure that they all need, what really happened to the boys, and she does her best anyways. But she makes sure to answer the most important one clearly: when and where?

Next Saturday, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a place formerly known and still labelled as Singer's Salvage.

Be there if you can, it would be so appreciated.

She calls as many people as she can get ahold of, going back to the earliest pages in the journal, and to her surprise, most of them say yes, they'll be there, they owe the agents, hunters, brothers, enough to at least pay their respects. Some people mention a third man in a trench coat, which Jody is surprised to hear, and fills them in all the same. It'll be a celebration and event of remembrance.

For all of them.

Jody goes through 2005, 2006, and hits almost the end of 2007 when she comes across something strange in Sam's journal. Cicero, Indiana, a case involving changelings, but the names of the people they helped were crossed out. From what she can tell, it was a time later than when the entry was originally written, the blue letters crossed out harshly with a black pen. Sam had crossed out their names for a reason, possibly to protect them? She's not really sure. But when she comes across a few similar marks four years later in the journal, she knows that she made the right call in not looking further into the case and just letting it rest.

Some stories and survivors would remain buried with the men that saved them, it seemed.

Not all of the entries have phone numbers attached, and in that case she does her best to find old newspaper and online reports of what happened to track down possible survivors. It takes hours, but she gets through them, each and every one she can, Sam and Dean deserve as much dedication from her in this final hour as they put into every day of their lives to save others.

She calls Max Banes somewhere in the middle, finding his name stored on her own phone while searching for someone else. The line rings and rings and rings but he doesn't pick up. When she tries Alicia, the number has been disconnected. There's nothing in Sam's journal about the twins past what Jody herself knows about, and she finds herself just hoping that they're alright.

Jody has to explain to a few people from many years ago that no, the Sam and Dean Winchester on the news a few years ago that shot up a bank were in fact, shapeshifters of a sort, and not the real men. In each case, Jody can hear the relief on the other end of the line, usually mixed with a few repetitions of 'I knew it couldn't have really been them'. Even years after seeing the brothers, the people's faith in them hadn't wavered. It makes her heart hurt and her lips morph into a smile at the same time.

When it's done she sits back, closes the journal, and lets out a long sigh. Her eyes drift to the library around her, the solid and protective solid cement walls in which Sam and Dean made their first real home.

The table in front of her bears their marks: S.W. and D.W. carved into the wood, an eternal reminder of the legends that used the space, added to it, and made it their own.

"Thank you," she whispers to the empty bunker. Her voice adds to the almost perpetual silent hum and mixes with it before it fades away entirely.

When she checks her phone, it's nearing four in the morning, and she knows that she can't risk driving back to Sioux Falls. If the brothers were there, they'd tell her to stay, like she had done a few times before. So she takes her bag down to the room she would stay in, one that was left fairly empty for guests, and turns in for what remains of the night.

In the space surrounded by warmth, familiarity, and mostly happy memories, she doesn't find it hard to fall asleep despite the long, emotional day she's had. When she wakes several hours later, it's to more silence, but if she listens close enough she can swear that she hears socked feet traveling through the hallways.

She expects to see one of them whenever she turns a corner. Almost bump into Sam, nose deep in a book, as he heads towards the library. Poke her head in the kitchen to see Dean making pancakes and asking how many strips of bacon she wants, because not having any isn't an option. A part of them is still stuck there and will forever remain, and Jody's okay with that.

She heads to the bathroom, cleans up, and continues on her way back out of the bunker. She picks up one of the emergency keys first, of course, before taking a reverent look around and shutting off the power. She'll be back, she knows that for certain, but she doesn't know when. Someone has to look after the place to a degree, after all, make sure it doesn't fall to ruin before someone else can come in and make use of it.

The drive back to Sioux Falls is both lighter and heavier than the one coming from it.

* * *

_Hopefully the slight assumptions I wrote in here still fly. I don't think we've seen Sam's journal, Jody's never been to the bunker onscreen, but I'd like to assume that Sam has a journal and that Jody has seen the bat cave (and met Cas). And yes, I know, the initials on the table changed this season, but this fits a bit better with the story and Mary isn't my favorite character so... As always, I'd love to hear any thoughts!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Last chapter! Thank you all so much for reading (and extra kudos to those of you that left a comment, you make my world go round ;) I truly did love writing this story, it was a bit therapeutic in a way, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Hope you all enjoy!_

_I own literally nothing._

* * *

Donna drives over on the Thursday before the gathering. Jody meets her with a crushing hug, and the girls put in their parts as well. Then Jody takes her over to what remains of Bobby Singer's place. He had left it to Dean should something happen to him, and Dean had transferred it to Jody years later because she was still in the area and less likely to die by unexplained causes.

Jody hasn't been by in a while, so that's probably part of the reason why her heart is in her throat when they pull up. The stacks of cars look the same, gravel pathways crisscrossing the lot. The cars have rusted in the passing years, a graveyard of reddening scrap metal gleaming in the sun.

She stops walking when she catches a glimpse of the charred remains of Bobby's house from nearly a decade prior. There's not much left now, but it still hurts. Donna's supportive hand on her shoulder moves her forward.

They pick out a place where they'll have everyone gather, a bit removed from the cars and closer to the outskirts of the lot, where some of the trees extend shade onto the gravel. It's peaceful. It's what they deserve.

Donna stays with them for the next two nights. They play card games, watch daytime television, and get some things for Saturday. They tell stories, reminisce, and pass around a box of tissues. If there's one constant with losing people, it's that after they're gone, all the stories get retold.

Jody's heard Donna's fat spa story time and time again, but it never really gets old, and Claire and Alex have a fun time hearing it. The first time Donna cut off a vampire's head, Claire traveling across dimensions to save the brothers, Alex finding a home because of Jody and Sam and Dean, everything. Jody throws in a few about Bobby and Cas for good measure, though Claire's face saddens noticeably whenever they mention Cas.

The last connection she has to her father, vanished without a trace, no matter how much she tried to come to terms with it in the passing years. It still hurts, Jody can tell, and she hugs her extra tight on Friday night even though the young adult first attempts a protest.

Claire ends up hugging back just as hard.

When Saturday comes, they're all at the salvage yard bright and early. They bring bottles of water with them, since the shade won't cover everyone, and some bags of snacks just in case. No one knows how long it will last or what they'll talk about, just that they have a purpose in doing so.

They don't dress in all black, it isn't a funeral per se, and Jody had mentioned over the phone that typical funeral attire was fine, if they felt inclined, but definitely not required. That, and after their recent experiences with the end of the world, they're trying to stay as far away from darkness as possible.

The first car pulls up just before eleven in the morning.

Jody's heart beats faster as it comes up the gravel entrance and pulls off to the open side. She talked to these people, invited them, but the full weight of seeing them face to face, the legacy Sam and Dean spent their lives creating, doesn't quite hit her until a young man and his mom step out of the car. They introduce themselves with sad smiles on their faces as Andrea and Lucas.

Jody remembers them just from their names. One of the earliest cases in Sam's journal, and therefor some of the hardest people to track down in the present day. But she had done it, and Andrea had been more than willing to make the drive over from Wisconsin, though they had moved cities since everything happened.

Lucas wouldn't be speaking if it weren't for Dean, wouldn't be alive if it weren't for both of the brothers. He stands close to his mother as she tells Jody the story, eyes far away as if the events happened yesterday. Jody knows the look well.

Cars show up more frequently after that. They pack into the empty space in the yard and line the street outside. People the Winchesters and Castiel saved, some bring their children, who wouldn't have been born if their parents hadn't been rescued in the first place.

Donna hits it off with a retired female cop from Hibbing who Sam and Dean saved from people nearly fifteen years ago. People, not monsters. Donna will tell Jody after that Kathleen's story made her skin crawl, how people could be _that _evil and inhumane to hunt their own for sport.

A mother and daughter from Indiana detail their experience with the daughter's imaginary friend that turned out to be an actual ghost. Jody laughs when the mother adds in that Sam wasn't a big fan of the antique doll collection.

Garth comes by around twelve and the whole group of women are happy to see a familiar face that met the boys more than once. He's about as torn up over the whole thing, them being gone, no clues as to why, as they are.

Jody leaves Donna and Claire to talk to him as she heads to a man, probably in his mid-twenties, standing apart from the group that has formed by the trees. He introduces himself only as Jesse, states that the brothers protected him, and doesn't say much else. His eyes hold a weight behind them older than his years, she knows that much without him saying anything. Jody, strangely, doesn't remember calling him, but maybe someone else knew him and did it for her. She's just glad to have him there.

Later, she'll realize that she never sees him leave, almost as if he vanished into thin air.

Around one, Jody calls the group more or less together. She stands on the trunk of a tree she once helped Bobby cut down for firewood and looks out at all of them.

Nearly three hundred people answered the call.

Hundreds saved, thousands of lives changed because the Winchesters had done their jobs and given their lives.

Jody knows that the boys knew their impact on the world, but she wishes that they could have seen it personified in front of them. Gotten to talk to the survivors again. Swap stories. Look into their eyes and know that they made a positive difference in the world despite how many times they may have screwed up.

Tears gather in her eyes before she even starts talking.

"I can't thank you all enough for coming." And really, she can't. It's been over a decade for some of these people, and they still dropped everything to make this possible. "The fact is…none of us," she gestures to herself, Donna, Claire, and Alex too, "would be here to come together without the Winchesters and Castiel."

And she catches herself.

How can she sum up a decade and a half of them saving the world on every size scale? How can she correctly eulogize them without going over the top or saying too little than what they deserve?

She can't. Plain and simple.

But she tries her best.

"We wouldn't have been there years ago, and we wouldn't have been here now, if not for them, once again, pulling the world back from the brink. But most of the world will never know."

"They won't know why the earth shook and tsunamis sprang up a decade ago. They won't know why the sun threatened to fail four years ago. And they won't understand why we were all plunged into darkness just days ago, only to be pulled out just as unexplainably."

She looks out over the sea of faces. Young, old, everything in-between, each with their own story to tell.

"But we will, and we'll carry that knowledge with us, that remembrance, that's their legacy. And we're gathered here today as a symbol of that, to try and hope that wherever they are now, they can see and feel the difference that they made in the world. We'll carry that difference with us for the rest of our lives. And that's enough."

* * *

People begin to leave around five, just as the sun is beginning to set over the horizon, setting the sky aflame with a multitude of warm colors. Not long ago, Jody doubted she'd ever see another sunset or sunrise. But she would, as would everyone else, thanks to the men that had sacrificed themselves.

By six, it's just the four of them left. At six-thirty, the girls head back to the house, with Alex having a shift at the hospital early the next morning and Claire being emotionally spent. Jody and Donna stay, promising to be back soon.

The scrapyard is quiet around them. Bugs hum in the overgrown grass, every so often an old piece of metal creaks, and the wind shifts in the trees. They lean up against their own car close to the entrance of the yard, not quite willing to say goodbye to the pile of memories and stories that have sunk into the ground amongst the trees and graveyard of broken down cars. They have all the time in the world, it seems, and neither are in a hurry to return to one without the Winchesters and their angel.

"This place was big in its hayday, hm?" Donna asks eventually, just to break the silence. She never met Bobby Singer, but knows he was a good man from the multitude of stories Jody's told over the years.

"Busy or apocalyptic big?" Jody questions further with just a hint of a smile on her face. "More the latter." She casts a glance back towards the remains of Bobby's house and it isn't long before Donna's arm is around her shoulders, pulling her close for a one-sided hug.

It lasts a few seconds before the silence and darkness are broken up by the sounds of a car coming up the gravel and dirt driveway. Donna lets Jody go right as the headlights illuminate the rusted metal around them. Both women raise up a hand to shield their eyes, and it isn't long after that the car shuts off and someone comes out.

"I am so, so, so sorry. I didn't think anyone would still be here. I blew a flat, had to get it fixed, it took all day, but I wanted to come just in case…" The someone turns out to be a young college-age woman with glasses and black hair. She comes around the front of the car, a few feet from Jody and Donna, and smiles sheepishly. "Don't suppose either of you are Jody Mills?"

Jody smiles and holds out her hand. "Glad you could make it." She says it honestly and truly, no matter how long it took the young woman, life has a way of, well, getting in the way of carefully laid plans. Jody knows that better than most, and the Winchesters knew that better than her.

"Marie," she fills in and shakes Donna's hand too.

Jody immediately connects the name with the voice on the phone. Slightly surprised, obviously distressed, and had assured Jody that come literal hell or high water, she'd be there. The case, too, that Sam had written in his journal, was one that stuck in her mind.

"The genius behind the play of the boys' lives." Jody's smile morphs into a sad grin, and Donna does her best to not look confused before she introduces herself.

Marie shrugs her shoulders and shifts her feet. "Seems like a lifetime ago. Then again, you don't really forget your favorite characters coming to life to save your bacon from a monster at your high school play." She speaks quickly and lets it drop off before she actually looks at the scenery around them. It's mostly dark now, but shapes can still be made out.

Jody heard about the books, the Winchester gospel, and may have made a few humorous comments to the brothers a few times about their existence. Stepping into Bobby Singer's former area of residence must be a whole other level of weird for Marie.

"Thank you for calling me. I never…expected anything like this, it's…surreal. But I think they'd be okay with it, going out, saving the world and all."

There are tears shining in her eyes as she says it.

This young woman, consumer and lover of fictional worlds and characters until she found out that some of them were real. She may have only met the brothers once, but Jody can tell how much it meant to her, and how much it probably still does.

They saved her life.

That's one thing everyone that had set foot on the grounds that day had in common. The one thing that brought them all together in the first place.

Marie blinks away the tears and rummages around in her purse. "I brought this, just in case I met you," she says as she looks and pulls out a small, plastic square. When she passes it over, Jody can see that it's a CD case, with a disc inside. "It's a copy of the play. We only did the one day, despite everything, so…if you wanted to see their acting performances, I mean, they're on there."

Jody looks between the disc and the girl, and Donna does the same. She doesn't have many videos of the brothers to begin with, same with pictures. The ones she does have she will treasure forever. But this, it's a gift, something to have and cherish and remember them by, a permanent reminder of the good they did in the world.

"Thank you, Marie. This really means a lot." Tears gather in her eyes too and her hands shake slightly around the case.

Marie assures her that it's the least she can do, and then she pauses, as if contemplating whether or not she should ask something next.

"You knew them well, right, and for a long time?" Jody only nods. "I mean, I read the books, but it's not, you know, the same. Could you—would you mind telling me about them? Sam and Dean and Castiel?"

Donna's hand is back on her shoulder, silent and supportive.

Jody's been telling stories all day. But she doesn't mind sharing a few more, she really doesn't. Especially not about the two men she first saw in awful suits sitting with the town drunk. Little did she know how much they'd change her life.

How they'd become her family.

She smiles at Marie then, sad and nostalgic, and above all else, _grateful _that she has these stories to share.

And Jody asks Marie where she'd like her to begin.


End file.
